League of Legends
League of Legends
Why was Voyboy banned from Twitch?
William Davis
League of Legends streamer Joedat “Voyboy” Esfahani has been banned from Twitch. Voyboy was in the middle of his regularly scheduled stream when Twitch hit him with a ban. Voyboy went on Twitter to explain that he doesn’t know the reason for his ban, while Twitch is yet to comment on the situation. By the time of this report, Voyboy had been banned for four hours and counting. Voyboy is …
League of Legends
Ivern’s Brazilian voice actor José Carlos Guerra dies at age 75
William Davis
José Carlos Guerra, who is known in the League of Legends community as the Brazilian voice actor for Ivern, has died at age 75. The Brazilian voice actor died of respiratory failure after battling lung cancer. Guerra was known as one of the best voice actors in Brazil and has most notably been dubbing Commissioner Gordon in the Batman series from 1966. He is also known as the voice behind …
League of Legends
Sjokz looks for CSGO work, contract with Riot “up for the year”
Olivia Richman
LEC host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere’s contract with Riot Games has ended. Sjokz tweeted that her contract with Riot Games as a host is “up for the year.” Due to the year’s unusual travel concerns, Sjokz added that her plans for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive “fell through” this year as well. With both of her gigs up in the air, Sjokz said that she is looking for more CSGO event work going …
League of Legends
LCS removes spring split, changes academy, adds 2021 tournaments
Steven Rondina
North American League of Legends is set to undergo a significant change in 2021. According to Travis Gafford, the LCS will be restructured for the next season in a number of different ways. This includes a merger of the spring and summer splits, new tournaments, and an expansion of the academy system. The removal of the spring split is the most eye-catching change. The LCS has used a few different …
League of Legends
Vitality is reportedly picking up AGO Rogue’s Szygenda for 2021
William Davis
It seems that Vitality might have found its new top laner for the 2021 LEC season. According to ESPN’s Jacob Wolf, Vitality is looking to sign AGO ROGUE top laner Mathias “Szygenda” Jensen after an incredible year for the young Danish talent. Szygenda will be replacing Lucas “Cabochard” Simon-Meslet, who announced that he is exploring options for the next season back in September. Cabochard has been a part of Vitality …
League of Legends
Riot is looking to move Seraphine from support to mid lane
William Davis
Seraphine has only been in the game for a few days and Riot is already looking to adjust her role in the upcoming patch. Patch 10.23 won’t only be a big preseason patch, it will also have some changes to Seraphine’s role in the game. According to lead gameplay designer Mark “Scuffy” Yetter, Seraphine has been skewed towards the support position more than was intended. Therefore, Riot will be making …
League of Legends
Tyler1 speaks out about Pokimane’s $5 donation cap on Twitch
Olivia Richman
T1 streamer Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp had a response to another streamer. And for once, it was to voice his agreement instead of cause drama. Imane “Pokimane” Anys recently limited her Twitch donations to a $5 maximum. While she didn’t say exactly why, Pokimane has been criticized in the past for accepting donations from male viewers who send large amounts of money despite potentially having financial problems. This has led some …
League of Legends
All you need to know to prepare for League of Legends Season 11
William Davis
Season 11 in League of Legends is right around the corner, and it’s coming with big changes to items, ranked play, the in-game shop, and more. The new season won’t just be a big change because of the usual ranked reset, but also because of the big item overhaul that will hit the live servers in the preseason. Players will get a few months to adjust to the new items …
Excel Esports parts ways with Caedrel before LoL 2021 shuffle
William Davis
League of Legends
Excel Esports and jungler Marc “Caedrel” Lamont have chosen to part ways after working together since the end of 2018 where Excel entered the LEC franchise. Thank you @Caedrel. Thank you for joining us on this journey for the past two years. Thank you for putting your trust into Excel back in 2018. Thank you for everything, there will always be a home here for you. Now go smash whatever …
T1, Faker to appear on BTS’s new variety show Run BTS
William Davis
League of Legends
T1 has announced a new collaboration with wildly popular musical act BTS. T1 and BTS are two names that need no introduction. The most popular esports organization in the world and the most popular boy band are collaborating for the first time. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, Park “Teddy” Jin-sung, Lee “Effort” Sang-ho, Mun “Cuzz” Uchan, and Kim “Canna” Chang-dong are the first special guests of Run BTS, a variety show produced …
LPL coverage saw a big increase in the 2020 LPL Summer Split
William Davis
League of Legends
The best Chinese League of Legends league, the LPL, has grown a lot over the course of 2020 with many new international fans tuning in. Having a total of 16 teams in the LPL has made it the most competitive league in 2020. The Chinese teams have managed to pick up the Worlds trophy two years in a row but were recently stopped by Korea’s DAMWON Gaming in the 2020 …
Is Aphelios good in the top lane? How to play Aphelios top
William Davis
League of Legends
Aphelios is starting to pop up in the top lane after being thrown out of the bottom lane meta a few patches ago. Aphelios entered League of Legends in December 2019 and quickly took over in the bot lane as one of the strongest picks. Riot had trouble balancing the complex marksman and ultimately ended up gutting him this year after months of dominance in both solo queue and professional …
Did Effort just leak LS and Polt joining T1 as coaches?
William Davis
News
A big offseason leak might have happened recently live on T1 support Lee “Effort” Sang-ho’s stream. T1 recently released coach Lim “Comet” Hye-sung as well as head of strategy and analytics Gary “Tolki” Mialaret, and will now be looking for new additions to the coaching staff for the upcoming season. Some of the new additions might already be leaked after Effort shared a private discord chat by accident on stream. …
These are the best builds for new LoL champion Seraphine
William Davis
League of Legends
The newest champion in League of Legends Seraphine has taken to the stage and is ready to dominate on Summoner’s Rift. Seraphine is a real pop star with a rhythmic and deadly kit. She is a mage support and can also be played as a solo laner in mid. So far, Seraphine has been picked the most as a support in Platinum rank and above, with a total of 87,000 …
Team Liquid and TF Blade split up for mysterious reasons
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid has parted ways with streamer Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni, the organization announced on Twitter. TF Blade started as a streamer, but became a substitute player for Team Liquid Academy and the LCS main roster. The team supported his ambition to reach rank one in every server and helped him do so with various bootcamps. Today we are parting ways with @tfblade. Ashkan has been integral in the TL …
Sneaky shows a lot in Halloween cosplay of Azur Lane Casablanca
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
“Happy Halloween!” So how does the League of Legends community celebrate this spooky holiday? With another cosplay from Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi, of course! The former League of Legends pro dropped an adorable game-related cosplay on Halloween for all of his fans. Happy Halloween! Azur Lane Casablanca????: Lynn???? @squarenoodles pic.twitter.com/hkS02l3GAT — Zach Scuderi (@Sneaky) October 31, 2020 The cosplay was based on Casablanca from the Chinese mobile game Azur Lane. The …
Riot Games reveals list of franchises for 2021 LCK season
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has revealed the final list of franchises that will compete in the 2021 LCK season and beyond. After a long process, Riot Games has selected 10 organizations that will be part of the LCK next year. The selected teams are: DAMWON Gaming DRX Afreeca Freecs Gen.G T1 KT Rolster SANDBOX Gaming Team Dynamics Hanwha Life Esports hyFresh Blade Nine out of the 10 teams selected were part of …
The best champions to climb with before ranked season 10 ends
William Davis
League of Legends
The ranked season is coming to an end, so it’s time to put in the last effort in solo queue to hopefully climb a few last ranks before the preseason kicks in. But what are the best champions to climb with in this final sprint? The current state of solo queue is pretty diverse and there are a lot of viable options for every role. The season 10 meta seems …
Worlds 2020 Finals had 2nd-highest viewership in esports history
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2020 League of Legends World Championship ended with a bang in the final between DAMWON Gaming and Suning. Millions of viewers tuned in to watch DAMWON win the Summoner’s Cup, the first time for a Korean team since 2017. The final was decided in four games, with the series hitting a peak viewership of 3.88 million viewers, excluding Chinese platforms per Esports Charts. 3.88M Peak Viewers on #Worlds2020 Grand …
Only 8 Worlds 2020 Pick’em players had perfect scores
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Part of the fun of the League of Legends World Championship is predicting the matches. After DAMWON defeated Suning in the finals to become the champions, eight Pick’em participants had perfect scores at the end of thee event. That means all eight of those viewers predicted the end result of all four main event groups and notched perfect brackets during the knockout stage. Those eight viewers will receive an Alienware …
League of Legends
is among the most popular widely-played video games in the world. It has been a consistent trendsetter in the gaming industry, whether as a model for other free-to-play titles looking to monetize their players or as a guiding light for how professional esports can be both successful and sustainable.
It hasn’t always been so though. League of Legends was released in 2009 as an uncertain new project, a game with large aspirations but little proven. In the years since, it has developed into the dominant title that it is today, and one of the biggest games on the planet.
League of Legends drives success of MOBA genre
League of Legends stands out in part because it may arguably be the very first original game released to truly fit into what we now understand to be the increasingly
popular MOBA genre. Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas are a very particular type of game genre that carry out competition between two opposing teams of players on a map. These games test a mix of competition, tactics, and quick reactions, a potent combination that has proven equal parts popular and durable over the years.
While League of Legends was certainly among the first full releases to focus on the genre and its new ideas, it wasn’t actually the origin point for any of it. That distinction belongs to
Blizzard release WarCraft 3,
and more specifically a modified game mode titled
Defense of the Ancients.
WarCraft 3 was a real-time strategy game that featured prominent hero units who could gain in power as they accrued experience points to level up their abilities, and gold to purchase powerful items. Defense of the Ancients was a
user-made game mode
which emphasized these heroes by giving each player control over one such character and teaming them up against an opposing squad of players. It was a dynamite success, inspiring myriad clones and, eventually, an entire genre of games.
But while League of Legends wasn’t the first to bring about these concepts, it was certainly
effective in executing on them. Early developers at publisher Riot Games had a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish with the creation of League of Legends, and it would be hard to argue against their success given the runaway popularity achieved by their iteration on the MOBA formula.
LoL incorporates esports sustainably
Just as impressive as the long-term success of League of Legends as a game is the continued success of the title’s esports scene. While esports has known multiple peaks and valleys over the years, Riot Games has consistently managed to maintain the prominence of LoL esports. This has been accomplished through an emphasis on
regular regional play
and
sustainability.
Most esports and competitive games at the time used a circuits system, scattering major tournaments for the best teams across the year. Instead, Riot divided the world into separate playing regions. Each region has its own
competitive league
in which the best professional teams play weekly. The best teams in each league are then brought together for an
annual World Championship event
at the end of the competitive year. This allowed for domestic fan followings to develop across such regions as
Korea,
China,
Europe, and
North
and
South America. Fans would closely follow the teams in their region, and from that familiarity would feel invested in cheering them on when they clashed with teams from other regions at the game’s biggest international event.
This basic blueprint has continued to prove successful for Riot Games over the years, though it has expanded and been modified with time. In response to the success of the World Championship, Riot introduced a second international tournament in 2015, the prestigious
Mid-Season Invitational. In 2025,
First Stand
was added to bring LoL esports to three international events per year. Once again the scene was enhanced and this indirectly expanded the opportunities for
League of Legends esports betting. In the meantime, the regional leagues have spread out to include
more regions and lower levels, solidifying their identity.
The basic formula remains the same, however.
Encourage fan support on a domestic level, and then carry that support and interest over to
the global stage. It’s a formula that continues to power League of Legends esports, and looks set to enable it for many years yet to come.
At Win.gg, our coverage of LoL esports spans from the broader competitive updates and their impact on the scene to in-depth high-profile match previews with team analysis, head-to-head analysis,
LoL betting odds
sense-makers and predictions. All of these based on the insights of our experienced esports journalists.
